What on earth are we thinking when we go into shops and buy lots of pointless stuff we just don’t need? John Naish says it’s not so much what’s on our minds, but which brain we use when we spendmore...

Haiti is a failed state: one of those places that just can’t seem to get its act together, despite the best efforts of benevolent Western powers. Or so the mainstream media would have you believe. Yet history tells us a more complicated story.more...

Ever since the 1970s we have lived with the growing awareness that our ecosystem is fragile and the perpetual exploitation of our natural resources impossible. By the late 1980s, even The Sun newspaper had its own green correspondent. Everything we buy, use and throw away has an impact somewhere on the ecological continuum, and nowadays the most bullish Western consumers’ consciences are regularly punctured by shards of eco-worry. We also increasingly realise that working ever harder for more possessions, more options, more stuff, doesn’t tend to make us more content. more...